McGill Reads: 2015 holiday edition

By Neale McDevitt

We already know that McGillians read. A lot. Papers, studies, textbooks, reports… But when time permits, what do they read for fun? For the third consecutive year, the Reporter asked members of the McGill community what they planned to read during the holiday break. This year, we got the most enthusiastic response ever, as we received input from virtually every constituency of the university including students, staff, faculty, alumni and upper administrators. Not surprisingly, this year’s McGill Holiday Reading List is long, challenging at times and diverse, covering every genre from fiction and non-fiction to poetry and graphic novels.

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It is only fair that the honour of kicking off theMcGill’s annual Holiday Reading List goes to the first person to submit their selections. Tim Wilfong, Co-Curricular Records Program Administrator at Student Services, sent his personal choices within seconds of the call for submissions hitting the airwaves. “What can I say? I love books!” he writes. Wilfong’s list includes By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham; Passport to Paris by Vernon Duke; and The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food by Dan Barber, a book he recommends to foodies everywhere. “My fiancé has already started reading it out loud to me and it’s amazing!”

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“In between the celebrating, visiting, and resting, my reading list over the holiday break will be pretty ambitious – I have three books targeted in all,” writes Bruna L. Salhany, Surgical Foundations Program Coordinator.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline; Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind; and Duty and Desire: A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy by Pamela Aidan. “I hope to finish The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky between now and Dec 24,” says  Salhany. “Wish me luck!”

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Like Bruna Salhany, Alice Norris, U2 BMus Performance, plans on tackling a little Dostoevsky, in this case Notes from Underground. Norris has also lined up David Sedaris’ Holidays on Ice; Robert Galbraith’s latest, Career of Evil; and John Cleese’s So, Anyway…

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Jim Nicell, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering will launch his holiday reading with Dungeon, Fire and Sword by John J. Robinson, a history of the Knights Templar and the Crusades.

From there he will turn to Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer, “which was one of the books nominated for the Cundill Prize this year,” writes Nicell. “This competition has become a very good source of books for me to read over the last few years.”

Moving to what he calls “something a little lighter,” Nicell will start the first of a three book series by Peter Ackroyd on the History of England.

“And somewhere in there, I hope to reread The Martian by Andy Weir. I have to read this again before I go see the recently released movie,” says Nicell. “I will be trying to entice my older son to read this one with me in the hopes that I can hook him on science fiction and turn him into a new and improved me!”

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“Looking for a balance of a gentle crime fiction and Canadian content I will read Louise Penny’s latest The Nature of the Beast,” says Catherine Stace, Career Advisor, Career Planning Service. “I have a timid relationship with dark mysteries so I have Lars Kepler’s (aka the Anhdorils) The Fire Witness on stand-by, and, because I am a huge fan of McGill’s own Jeopardy! player Mariusz Galczynski, I plan to re-read Redefining Multicultural Education: Inclusion and the Right to Be Different co-authored with Ratna Ghosh.”

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“This holiday, I’m looking forward to exploring the history of the Salem witch trials by reading Stacy Schiff’s The Witches: Salem 1692 and getting some insight into the creative process with Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic,” writes Danielle Barkley, Career Advisor at Career and Planning Services. “And because no holiday would be complete for me without a big, fat historical novel, I’m finally going to crack open Stephen Jarvis’s neo-Victorian Death and Mr. Pickwick.”

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Physiotherapy student Anush Nersisyan plans on reading Four Years in the Mountains of Kurdistan: An Armenian Boy’s Memoir of Survival by Aram Haigaz.

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Victor Chisholm, Undergraduate Research Officer in the Faculty of Science, is looking forward to reading Wall Flower: A Life on the German Border by Rita Kuczynski.

“My German isn’t strong enough to read with ease the original German version Mauerblume, so instead I will be reading this English translation, just out from University of Toronto Press, and translated by my friend Prof. Anthony Steinhoff at UQAM,” writes Chisholm. “Tony teaches undergraduate courses on 20th century European history, and he found that, while there is ample material that describes the establishment and final decay of communism, there isn’t a lot of primary source material available in translation that covers life behind the iron curtain in the middle period. He was excited, as a historian, to be able to translate this book to English, to bridge that gap. My mother and her family fled Hungary in the aftermath of the 1956 revolution, and I have the sense that we who have not lived under communism or totalitarianism fail to understand what that life was like, which is why I am looking forward to read this book.”

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Cindy Westcott, Project Manager in the Desautels Faculty of Management says she is looking forward to curling up with the following trio of books, Scribbling the Cat: Travels With an African Soldier, by Alexandra Fuller; The High Mountains of Portugal, by Yann Martel; and The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters.

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“I am currently travelling through Europe for the first time for the holidays visiting my partner’s family,” writes Kazumi Hoshino-Macdonald, McGill’s 139th Rhodes Scholar. “She is half French, half-German so we will be spending christmas in Lyon. Therefore I have decided to plow through Thomas Picketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, as I am partial to non-fiction. Dry, I know…but nothing like a brilliant French author to provide a touch of enlightenment to one’s holiday festivities.

“I also recently finished Murakami’s 1Q84 trilogy (published as one larger book in North America), if looking for something a little less tedious,” continues Hoshino-Macdonald. “Though still dense in page count, it reads smoothly and boasts his classic touch of fleeting romance, and political mystery. I thoroughly enjoyed it.”

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Bruce Lennox, Dean of the Faculty of Science says “I am looking forward to reading three books that I have scanned but now want to sit down and read cover to cover once and for all. But I already know each is great!”

His list is made up of Essays by E.B. White; Linus Pauling in His Own Words edited by Barbara Marinacci; and ‎ The First Casualty by Phillip Knightly.

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Nigel Roulet, Director, Chair of the Department of Geography, has four books in his sights for the break. Roulet will tackle the second part of Ken Follet’s century trilogy – Winter of the World. “I know it’s been out for a number of years but I work at McGill so I am behind,” says Roulet.

“I have two books on my bedside table that I want to read – Climate Change: A Wicked Problem: Complexity and Uncertainty at the Intersection of Science, Economics, Politics, and Human Behavior by Frank P. Incropera; and Between the World and Me Hardcover, by Ta-Nehisi Coate.

Finally, writes Roulet, “I am hoping that I might find Invention of The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf.”

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Chris Buddle, a professor in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences, has four books “stacked under my bed.”

Buddle is looking forward to River of Doubt, the story of Teddy Roosevelt’s journey down a tributary of the Amazon. “It’s promised to be a ‘harrowing adventure’ which sounds good for a cold winter day,” he says.

He will also read Gould’s Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan and a pair of science-themed books he is hoping to open, Gulp by Mary Roach (“About the human alimentary system”) and This Idea Must Die (“About scientific theories that need a rethink”). “Should be a terrific break, filled with books, as well as a bit of skiing, time with my family, and sleep,” writes Buddle

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Kareem Ibrahim, President of the Students’ Society of McGill University has two books lined up for the break. He will read All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews and Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.

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Line Thibault, McGill’s General Counsel, has the distinction of being the only person to submit only French titles to our list. Thibault plans to read Tout ce qu’on ne te dira pas, Mongo by Dany Laferrière, which she says “may be timely given the impending arrival in Quebec of a large group of Syrian refugees.”

She also hopes to read Les gens dans l’enveloppe by Isabelle Monin and Alex Beaupain. “It is book inspired by pictures of strangers bought by the author on internet,”writes Thibault. “She imagined their lives, then a friend decided to write and record songs about them, and eventually the authors found these strangers and they contributed their own true stories and apparently also sang some of the songs. So it’s a book, a CD and a photo album all wrapped up in one original piece.”

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Arts undergrad Hannah Taylor (who was featured in the Reporter in April) has lined up a trio of books to tackle over the break. Taylor wants to read Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg (“I’m going to be managing a Lean In Circle here at McGill next semester and need a refresher before we start meeting!”); A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout and Sarah Corbett (“I read about Lindhout’s amazing philanthropic work in Somalia a little while ago and this book explains how her experience as a hostage led her to make such change.”); and Wild by Cheryl Strayed (“I’ve read this book at least four times and plan on doing so again. Strayed is just a fantastic writer and her story is so meaningful. It is one of my favourites!”).

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David Araujo of the McConnell Brain Imaging Center plans on reading four books over the break. They are Mordecai Richler’s Saint Urbain’s Horseman; Philip Roth’s My Life as a Man; Primo Levi’s Other People’s Trades; and Martin Page’s Comment Je Suis Devenu Stupide.

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“I would want to read André Alexis’s Fifteen Dogs even if it hadn’t won the Scotiabank Giller Prize,” writes Daniel McCabe, esteemed editor of the McGill News. “A pack of dogs is granted human intelligence to settle a wager between Greek gods? I’m in.

“I’m a big fan of NPR’s On the Media and I’ve been meaning to read The Influencing Machine by OTM co-host Brooke Gladstone and illustrator Josh Neufeld for a while now,” he continues. “As OTM listeners know, Gladstone is always astute and occasionally acerbic on the subject of the media, so I’m looking forward to spending time with this illustrated history of reporting.”

McCabe is also hoping to read Adrian Tomine’s newest graphic novel, Killing and Dying. “You’ll never spot a cape or a laser gun in the nuanced stories that Tomine crafts,” he says.

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Political Science & History student Phoebe Warren has a rio of titles lined up for the holidays. They include the Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters, Walden and Other Writings by Henry David Thoreau and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

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“I actually do not know what I’ll be reading by the time the holidays roll around. However, here are books I have just finished or am still reading, which I think make excellent holiday reading depending on interest,” writes David Eidelman, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. Eidelman’s picks include:

The Martian, by Andy Weir. “Wonderful novel that brings out your inner nerd while still being well written and compelling,” writes Eidelman.

Marie Curie prend un amant by Irène Frain. “Fascinating look at one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century as a human being.”

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. “Unforgettable essay written as a letter from a man to his son that brings out the tragedy of racism in America.”

Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by Stanley McChrystal. “Excellent reading for the manager or manager wannabe on how to lead successfully in the internet era.”

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Andrea Di Stefano, Editor, Enrolment Services, applauds the annual reading list as “a great way to get ideas about new books to read!”

His choices for the break include The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham by Esther & Jerry Hicks; The Power of the Heart: Finding Your True Purpose in Life by Baptist De Pape; and David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell

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Michael Mitchell, Deferral Coordinator in Enrolment Services is planning on starting off with a bit of rereading. First he will revisit Russell Smith’s Giller-long listed short story collection Confidence, followed by The Rim of Morning by William Sloane. “Rim consists of two remarkable, and unjustly forgotten, genre novels originally written in the 1930s, but recently republished by New York Review Books,” writes Mitchell. “Then, as I’m currently working on a zombie novel set in rural Quebec, I’m going to dive into Catharine Parr Traill’s The Backwoods of Canada. Published in 1836, it’s an emigrant’s account of living in the bush near Peterborough (she’s also Susanna Moodie’s older sister).

“I’m finally going to get to Les Meilleurs Contes Fantastiques Quebecois du XIXe Siecle, edited by Aurelien Boivin,” continues Mitchell. “Lastly, if there’s time — and no more holiday wine left!— I’m going to crack open Kenneth Oppel’s The Nest.”

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Anja Geitmann, Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences writes “I wish I had the time to read. But here is a list I would love to attack, given some extra time. Currently, my pet project is to learn how the brain works – as a plant biologist that’s a whole new world of functioning of the living being that I know too little about.”

Geitman’s list includes Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow; Daniel Levitin’s The Organized Mind; and Kevin Dutton’s The Wisdom of Psychopaths

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Sacha Young, an Ethics Review Administrator in the Faculty of Medicine will be reading Claudio Saunt’s West of the Revolution: An uncommon history of 1776; Anthony Bailey’s Standing in the Sun: A life of J.M.W. Turner; and Joshua Cohen’s Book of Numbers.

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Jane Aitkens, Coordinator, ILS & Catalogue at the Library will be finishing Not in God’s Name – Confronting Religious Violence by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

“I have read 50 pages so far, and am finding it amazingly insightful and totally topical,” writes Aitkens.

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“I am out of the office late on the 23rd, heading down to the Townships with my family for the break. Doesn’t look like I will be doing any snowshoeing or skating. Better stock up on my reading material, and I don’t mean just files from the office,” writes Hudson Meadwell, Dean of Arts (Interim). I have a couple of rereads in mind. Two I return to on a regular basis: End Zone by Don Delillo and an early book by John Le Carré, Call for the Dead. Will likely pack one of them.”

Meadwell says it might be “time to reread Orenda by Joseph Boyden, in light of the commentary and discussion that it has generated which, I confess, I have started to track only recently. Danilo Kiš wrote two books I love, Hourglass and Garden, Ashes. Might bring one of them to the country.

A colleague recently suggested a book by Len Deighton, Winter. This is a prelude to his trilogy, Game, Set and Match. Look forward to reading it.”

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Abida Subhan, Co-ordinator of the Department of Animal Science and the Department of Natural Resource Sciences has three titles on her holiday list – The Witness by Nora Roberts; The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan; and Don’t Look Twice by Andrew Gross.  “All of them are easy reads, no heavy-duty choices so it is doable,” writes Subhan. “I would be happy if I could read two of these books.”

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Bruno Savoie, a second year student at the Faculty of Law, says “I look forward to reading Walter Kiechel’s Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World. I think that law students can learn from management consulting and its rich history. I am also very excited about reading the latest book from Peter Singer, The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically. Singer has been influencial in my life and I see many of the leading philanthropists implementing his ideas. Finally, I hope to read L’humeur Vagabonde by Antoine Blondin, a French author who has been described to me as a master of style.”

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As always, Will Straw, Director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, has some interesting choices for holiday reading. “I’m going to start with two books on music,” writes Straw. “Jon Savage’s 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded, interests me for lots of reasons. Savage is one of the most insightful chroniclers of the last 50 years of popular culture in Britain and over here. And I love books which take a single year as their focus.”

Straw also has Les filles aussi jouent de l’air guitar, by Hélène Laurin on his to-read list. “This book grew out of her MA thesis, which Hélène wrote before she came to McGill to do her doctorate under my supervision,” writes Straw. “Hélène is an air guitar champion herself, but this book is a study of the whole air guitar phenomenon and the place of women within it.”

Finally, Straw will read Downtown Film + TV Culture, 1975-2001, an anthology edited by Joan Hawkins. “It’s all about the incredible explosion of cutting-edge media-making which took place in Manhattan over 25 years, until gentrification pushed that kind of activity off the island,” says Straw.

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“I’m finishing up Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli, a sad but wonderful story about a young boy trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Second World War,” writes Derek Cassoff, Director of Communications, University Advancement. “It was required reading for my daughter in her Grade 7 English class, and she has called it the best book she has ever read in your young life. Next up will likely be Killing a King, by Dan Ephron, which chronicles the life of Yitzhak Rabin and the extremist forces that led to his assassination, and One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by Åsne Seierstad. Yup, nothing like a little light reading to wile away the holiday break.”

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Jeremy Ullman, a U1 Physics Major, says he’ll be reading From Eternity to Here by Sean M. Carroll and Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan for sure. If he has any extra time, he will also tackle Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan.

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Dilson E. Rassier, Dean, Faculty of Education has selected a mix of fiction and non-fiction for his holiday reading.

On the fiction side, Rassier will be reading Canto General by Pablo Neruda, Claraboia by Jose Saramago and Herzog by Saul Bellow

His non-fiction titles include Revolution in Science by Bernard Cohen and Kuhn vs. Popper: The Struggle for the Soul of Science by Steven Fuller

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“I plan to read mostly 20th century American literature over the break this year,” writes Mitchell Clarke, a U2 Poli Sci student,”and maybe some Murakami too.”

Clarke’s list includes Rabbit, Run by John Updike; Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon; White Noise by Don DeLillo; and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakam.

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Raphaël Fischler, Director of the School of Urban Planning has cast a wide net with his trio of books – a novel, a title in his field of urban planning, and a philosophical essay.

Of Duong Thu Huong’s No Man’s Land (Terre des oublis in French) Fischler writes “It is in fact not on my list for the holidays because I read if over the summer, but I highly recommend it to the whole McGill community.”

Next, Fischler includes Joan DeJean’s How Paris Became Paris : The Invention of the Modern City. “DeJean spoke at McGill on Oct. 15, 2015 ; she rightly argues that Paris didn’t have to wait till Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann to acquire some of its hallmark characteristics,” he writes. “Whether innovations in the 17th really made Paris modern remains to be seen, but they certainly changed the city for the better and made Paris a city to be seen and enjoyed.”

And finally, there is Avishai Margalit’s The Ethics of Memory. “It may be appropriate, as we leave one year behind and enter into a new one, to ask with Margalit whether we are obligated to remember the past, both individually and collectively, and if so, how we should do so,” says Fischler.

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“Over the holidays I plan on reading A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas. I have very fond memories of my mother reading this to me as a little girl, so I’m looking forward to reading it as an adult,” writes Rachel Baker, a first year MA student in the Département de langue et littérature françaises. “And as per tradition, my grandmother and I read aloud The Dead by James Joyce. Also on the list are Marguerite Yourcenar, Chateaubriand and Madame de La Fayette to get a head start on next semester!”

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Zengetsu Myokyo Judith McLean, Zen Buddhist Chaplain in the McGill Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, has lined up Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, Medicine and What Matters in the End for her holiday read.

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“Love to spend some quality time reading during the Christmas break, so have four I plan to curl up with, three more serious and one more fun,” writes Management professor, Karl Moore.

Introvert Power by Laurie Helgoe. “I am an extrovert but doing research on introverted leaders so this more work,” he says. “On the more philosophical side, Beyond the Quiet Time: Practical Spirituality by Alister McGrath, by an old friend from England who a bit of a mentor for me. Much more too it than the some what tongue-in-cheek title suggests.”

Moore will also tackle No One Understands You and What To Do About It, by social psychologist Hedi Grant Halvorson.

Moore’s guilty pleasure? Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham, (“A bit embarrassing, but the man can write!”)

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Like many people who submitted their personal list, fourth-year Art History student Hannah Conway “can’t wait to see the final list.” Over the break, she is planning to read Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; A Man in Love, the second book of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s “My Struggle” series; Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running; and Juan Gabriel Vasquez’s The Sound of Things Falling.

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Kimberley Stephenson, Trade Buyer for the McGill Bookstore, plans on reading Middlemarch by George Eliot; City on Fire by Garth Hallberg; and Invisible Romans by Robert Knapp.

“That gives me a classic I never got around to reading, a hot new novel, and a history of the ordinary people of the Roman Empire,” she writes. “If I have time, I will add Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, the basis for the Broadway musical Hamilton.”

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“I’m going to be honest, most of my thoughts in the past couple weeks have been focused on wrapping up the semester and finishing my thesis, so I haven’t thought a lot about my holiday reading list,” writes Danielle Toccalino, Secretary-General of McGill’s Post-Graduate Students’ Society. “With that being said, I’m half-way through The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas; The Organized Mind, by Daniel Levitin; and The 10 Day MBA by Steven Silbiger, so hopefully I’ll be able to finish those over the break!”

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“I usually put on my holiday reading list far more than I can realistically get to,” writes Daniel Jutras, Dean of the Faculty of Law. “I always imagine the holidays as this amazing period of free time, with long hours sitting by the fire, book in hand… I forget that much of that time is actually spent marking dozens of exams and papers, preparing for the next term, finishing long-overdue pieces for publication, hosting guests, shopping for gifts, cooking, spending time outdoors, sleeping – and not necessarily in that order. Still, I always bring with me several books and will only crack open a few. ‘Les yeux plus grands que la panse,’ my grandmother would have said.”

Jutras’ list include Maurice Garçon’s Journal (1939-1945); Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art by Julian Barnes; La politique dans la peau by John Parisella; the latest graphic novel by Michel Rabagliati in the “Paul” series, Paul dans le Nord; Qui a tué Roland Barthes? La septième function du langage by Laurent Binet (“I could not resist the idea of a murder mystery set in the bizarre world of French intellectuals”); Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, a graphic novel by Quebecois author Guy Delisle. “If it rains every day, and no one comes to our house, I might return to David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, which I have picked up and abandoned many times already,” says Jutras.

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Alastair Hibberd, Masters student in Educational Leadership, plans on reading A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink; The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins; This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin; and “Whatever books I get for Christmas!”

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Stephanie Wereley, Digital Community Communications Assistant in the School of Continuing Studies, is ready to dive into The Woman I Wanted to Be by Diane Von Furstenberg

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And, finally, our master list will close with the selections of the enigmatic Bud Martin, McGill Reporter contributor, who says that one of the perks of parenthood is getting two bedtime stories every night. Martin and his two kids, ages 6 and 8, plan to send off 2015 by re-visiting a favourite novel from earlier in the year. “My daughter wants us to re-read William Pène du Bois’ The Twenty-One Balloons, even though it felt like I was the only one who liked it the first time, and my son is campaigning for Matilda by Roald Dahl,” he says. “I’m thrilled with either. For my solo reading, I’m hooked on Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle series. Book five of the Norwegian sensation isn’t out in English until April, so I’ll bide my time with a new Scandinavian micro-epic: Fredrik Sjöberg’s The Fly Trap, the first part in his three-volume (?!) memoir about collecting hoverflies (?!?!) on a remote Swedish island. Man, Scandinavian publishers greenlight the weirdest series. There’s also a 100 per cent chance that I’ll steal my wife’s copy of Jonathan Franzen’s Purity now that she’s done with it.”